Clinical Features:

• Caused by the fungus Sporothrix schenckii
• "Rose gardener's disease": Sporothrix organisms found on plants are inoculated into the hand by penetrating trauma.
• A hard nodule develops at the site of inoculation and the infection moves up the upper extremity by way of the lymphatics, with resulting regional lymphadenopathy.

Histologic Features:

• The diagnosis is best made by culture, since the organism is difficult to find histologically.
• Early lesions show a nonspecific mixed inflammatory infiltrate.
• Later lesions may show suppurative granulomas with concentric zones: central neutrophilic microabscesses surrounded by epithelioid macrophages, which are in turn surrounded by lymphocytes and plasma cells.
• Asteroid bodies may be seen, and are characteristically extracellular, in contrast to the intracellular asteroid bodies seen in sarcoidosis and other granulomatous diseases.
• If the organisms are visible on fungal stains, they appear as 3-8-micron round to cigar-shaped yeasts.

Cases associated with this book:

Sporotrichosis
Author: Artur Zembowicz M.D. Ph.D.

Conference: DermatopathologyConsultations.com Teaching Collection